One of my favourite classic novels begins with the words: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Hosea was a single man when he was first called by God to be a prophet, but we don’t know if he possessed a large fortune, or whether he wanted a wife. However, clearly, God wanted to give him one.
Having God choose your mate would surely be a great privilege, and would certainly lessen the stress levels for those deciding whether marriage is a viable option. A partner chosen by the almighty would, no doubt, be an amazing blessing. What calibre of person would he choose? Only the best, no doubt! Except that for Hosea, it didn’t work out that way.
Hosea chapter 1 verse 2 says: “When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her.” If you were the prophet, what would your response have been? I think I would have dismissed such an order immediately. This can’t be from God! He wouldn’t ask me to do this! Maybe Hosea would have done that too, if the Lord hadn’t explained his reasoning. “For like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” (Hosea 1: 2)
So, Hosea’s marriage and family became a part of his prophecy – a literal life lesson to the people to whom God had called him to minister. He married Gomer, and they began having children, whose names were chosen by God himself. Far from being grateful for Hosea’s love and her removal from a life of prostitution, Gomer soon returns to her old ways. In fact, it’s likely that at least one of her children wasn’t her husband’s. How must he have felt? He’d given the woman the chance of a good life, and she’d thrown it back in his face.
Before I judge Gomer, I need to stop, take stock, and ask how many times I’ve done the self same thing to God. Just as Hosea lifted Gomer out of the mud and the mire of a life of prostitution, my Saviour has lifted me out of a life of sin. Where would I be right now without Jesus? I dread to think. I know where I deserve to be, because I am well aware of my selfishness, arrogance and pride. Sin comes naturally to us humans, right from the moment a two-year-old stares her mother defiantly in the face, stamps her foot, and screams the word: “No!” We have to be taught to behave, not to be disobedient. Also, sin often comes wrapped in such pretty packages. If it were ugly and not enjoyable, we’d all turn away, but it can appear so alluring.
Those of us who have invited Jesus Christ to rule and reign in our hearts have turned our back on sin, and chosen a different path. Or have we? Even the apostle Paul acknowledged that the battle between the flesh or the old nature and the spirit or the new nature of the Christian is very powerful and all too real. In Romans 7 verse 19, he says: “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” He goes on: “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (verses 21-23.)
I gain comfort when I realise such a devoted Christian as Paul still struggled with his old sin nature. Although God has brought us out of darkness into his kingdom of light, we still get tempted back into the dark, because it sometimes entices us with a false unnatural glow. Maybe that’s what happened with Gomer. Perhaps to begin with, life with Hosea was wonderful, and she revelled in her new-found freedom from prostitution. Then, maybe married life became mundane. Perhaps she got stressed with the house and the children, and she became jealous of the time her prophet husband spent with God. Why wasn’t he helping her instead of going off to hear from God and minister to his people? Obviously, I’m just surmising here, because the Bible doesn’t tell us how Gomer felt, or what led her to leave Hosea and run back to her old ways.
I’ve known many Christians who have done what Gomer did. They’ve been saved from lives of sin and sadness, rejoiced in their salvation and freedom for a time, and then gone back. I don’t know if some of them have returned to the Lord, although I pray they will. It would be very easy for me to sit on my high tower and judge them. How can they walk away from such love? After everything Jesus has done, how could they turn their back on him? If I am tempted to think or speak in this way, the story of Hosea and Gomer stops me in my tracks.
Most men in Hosea’s position would wash their hands of Gomer. Having returned to her former ways, they would say she deserves everything she will get. However, Hosea chapter 3 begins with the words: “The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” Other parts of Hosea talk about wooing and alluring her. It is a language of love, not of condemnation, and a lesson to me in how I should treat those who struggle and backslide in their walk with God.
We are all prone to making wrong decisions and falling into sin. We know how we should live, but we often find ourselves on the broad path rather than the narrow one we are meant to tread. Even if we don’t turn away from God and go back to the world, we still let him down daily either in thought, word, or deed. I am so glad Hosea’s God is my God. I am eternally grateful he doesn’t give up on the Gomer’s of this world, because it means he will never give up on me.
If you have fallen away from the Lord, please come home. No matter what you feel separates you from him, all you need to do is ask for forgiveness and fall into the loving arms which are ready and eager to receive you. Life isn’t like a romantic novel. In Pride and Prejudice, the book from which the quote at the top of this devotional came, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy end up living a charmed life, happily ever after. Real life isn’t always like that. It is full of ups and downs, good days and bad days, but through it all, we can hold onto the hand of the one who will love us no matter what. He doesn’t just love you when you’re praising him and walking in his will. He loves you when you’re crying your eyes out at 2 A.M. because you’ve fallen into sin and you don’t know how to get back out. The enemy may be whispering words of guilt and condemnation, snarling that you’ve gone too far, and God will never welcome you home, but remember Gomer and Hosea. He went in search of his faithless wife and brought her home to love her again, and that is what Jesus wants to do for you and me.